Feted author Amos Oz says new leftist party will replace Labor

[oberliner]

"I hope the expanded leftist movement will become a replacement for the Labor Party," author Amos Oz told Haaretz on Saturday. "The Labor Party has finished its historic role, it isn't putting forward a national agenda and it joins any coalition," Oz said. He was among 30 intellectuals and public figures who attended the Tel Aviv press conference Friday at which the official launch of a new left-wing party modeled after Meretz was announced.

Referring to the refusal by Labor Party chairman Ehud Barak to commit to not joining a coalition headed by Likud chairman Benjamin Netanyahu, Oz said "For many years there has been a large gap between what the Labor Party says and what it does." He added that he hoped the new bloc's potential can be translated into a Knesset list consisting of Meretz members, ex-Laborites, environmentalists, supporters of Dov Khenin in the just-finished Tel Aviv mayoral elections, Reform Jews and Arabs.

The new party has apparently not yet carried out a poll to judge the degree of public support it can expect. "I always think in double-digit numbers," Meretz chairman Haim Oron said Friday. The new party doesn't yet have a new name. In light of the desire of new members for "rebranding," alternatives, the "Meretz" name will be evaluated in the coming days.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1037560.html